


even when the summer's passing by

by honestlylemmejust



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Friends to Lovers, Kissing, M/M, a lot of pining, and sex in the woods, bigfoot au, handjobs, i guess, i literally don't even know, i wish some of this made sense, just the main things you might look for in a fic really, scary amounts of pining on louis' part, so look forward to that if anything, thats what ive been calling it, there is a lot of fluff in this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-29
Updated: 2014-03-29
Packaged: 2018-01-16 16:54:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1354789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honestlylemmejust/pseuds/honestlylemmejust
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Louis is terribly in love, Niall is Irish, Liam is a conundrum, Zayn is stormy, and Harry just really wants to find bigfoot.</p><p>Or the au where it’s summer and Harry’s bright idea is to get his friends together to hunt for bigfoot, and Louis tries not to find it hopelessly endearing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	even when the summer's passing by

**Author's Note:**

> This is sort of strange, but in a good way I hope. The prompt was given to me by my best friend, and I really couldn't deny her of the joys of having a fic dedicated to her, so this is dedicated to [Hannah](http://wigglytoes-penisnose.tumblr.com) and I really hope that she enjoys it :) love you!!!!  
> Anyways yeah, this is a trainwreck and I hope everyone loves it as much as I loved writing it (im such a cliche)  
> Everything about this is probably wrong btw, I tried to do my research but honestly I'm about as much an amateur as Harry and his friends so please bear with me on this entire thing and we'll pretend it turned out perfectly.  
> Also as a disclaimer: ignore all typos and Louis and his friends live in a world where anal penetration is easy breezy beautiful covergirl and nobody poops, especially not in the woods, and especially not zayn because zayn doesn’t poop in real life and i dont own people

“I’m sorry, what?” Louis is sure he must have heard wrong.

Harry seems too enthusiastic when he repeats, “I think we should spend the summer looking for bigfoot.” And Niall was already whooping and hollering before Harry even finished the sentence the first time.

Like, Louis knew Harry was into that stuff, but he never thought he’d take it this far.

Harry isn’t stupid, Louis has known him for long enough to know that. Once he found out the toothfairy wasn’t real, it wasn’t long before he concluded that Santa and the Easter Bunny must also be fake. He was only six. And Louis has seen his test scores at school, so it’s not like Harry isn’t a clever boy. It’s just that this whole town is under the impression that bigfoot must exist, or at least it seems like it’s the entire town. Louis isn’t on about it. He’d be happy to spend his summer doing what most kids do before college: preparing for hell and spending as much time drinking under the stars with his friends.

Zayn apparently is in his right mind though, and not particularly keen on sleeping in tents for half the summer, or whatever the hell Harry is planning on doing. Louis is happy he can at least have Zayn on his side, even if it’s only because he can’t survive a day without proper rest and good hair product.

Perrie will only do it if there’s another girl on the team, which automatically translates to only if Zayn goes because she’s completely and utterly infatuated with Louis’ very gay best friend. And Liam is on the fence because he’s always on the fence with everything when the group is divided. Sometimes even when the group isn’t divided.  Liam can be summed up in two words. Helpful and complicated. Basically Liam is a conundrum.

Anyway, it’s just an absolutely ridiculous notion to even be considering because half of them have bigger things to worry about than this, and it’s kind of ridiculous.

“When Gemma gets home she can break the tie.” Harry says, and Louis rolls his eyes because Gemma is just as crazy about it as her younger brother is, and there is no arguing with them. It’s not an agreement, there is no tie-breaker, and there is no ‘majority wins’. Louis isn’t going to spend his summer looking for bigfoot. Period. End of discussion.

“This isn’t grade school.” He tells them, and then he sighs. “I just really don’t want to.”

“It’ll be like a fun camping trip, and Zayn can even read us scary stories!” Which gets a groan out of Liam and Perrie both. “Pretty please with sugar on top?” Harry whines, and god, he’s such a todler why does Louis spend any time with him? “I promise it won’t stay longer than a week. It’s just that there have been _sightings_ , like, real ones.”

Louis mulls it over, trying to decide which will cause him less harm, spending a week camping or probably going even longer without seeing Harry this summer, because god knows Harry’s gonna go despite if anyone else wants to go with him. But then Zayn will be mad, and it’s really like Louis can’t win.

Either way though, having Zayn mad at him is better than Harry pouting, he relents finally and says yes. “Okay, fine. But you have to make me cookies.”

Zayn is obviously annoyed that the promise of cookies was enough to break Louis, because now he knows he’ll probably have to come along as well. Poor Zayn.

 

+

 

It’s not long before Gemma starts making plans. Her and Harry are both way too excited about this, and Louis thinks that if he were one of their parents he’d probably ground them for the entire summer because this isn’t even bordering on obsession anymore. Harry gets like this about everything though, and Louis is so concerned for his health because he actually maybe fancies Harry a little and that can’t be right.

Harry’s an absolute dork and Louis is gonna lose an arm camping in the woods because of him. The joys of unrequited love.

 

Harry’s plan consists mainly of two things: tents and something Louis can’t decide if it’s a torturing apparatus or a stick to cook hotdogs on. Thankfully Gemma’s got her priorities in check and her plan is shaping up to be quite a nice list. The date she’s picked is a lot more reasonable than right after school ends, which Harry wanted, and they’re set somewhere in the beginning of June. Her list of things promises alcohol as well, so Louis is a bit more enthusiastic about it now.

 

Perrie keeps complaining, deciding to take Zayn’s side in things as always. She’s blabbed all about it to Jade and Louis is so embarrassed he’s considering stuffing Perrie in the trunk until it’s time to go. And maybe Zayn as well, because even though Louis won’t admit it, he kind of fucking needs Zayn to come with them. Zayn is like the only person who keeps him sane for some reason. Like, Louis has really sort of got the biggest crush on Gemma’s kid brother of all people and sometimes Zayn can just smack him round the head and his impending panic or existential crisis will disappear for at least five minutes. So even though he’s already kind of agreed to it, Louis keeps begging Zayn to promise him because he can’t be stranded in the woods without him.

 

+

 

Summer in Virginia is probably one of the most unpredictable things Louis has ever had the great pleasure of witnessing and it’s no different this year. In school they teach you ‘April showers bring May flowers’, but Louis is pretty sure it’s actually cold in May and rains a lot so it can be devilishly humid in June, and ruin his entire life. It’s basically bullshit, because Liam is coming, and Liam has hormone problems or something because he sweats buckets on an average day, but put him in the heat and he’s like a fucking stuck pig and Louis is not ready to be in a car with him for over an hour. He prays to god that Gemma’s car has air conditioning.

The thing is, there are seven of them, and Gemma’s car only fits six on a good day because she’s got one of those old ones with an extra cramped seat in the front. Not only that but they’ve all got duffels, and tents, and supplies.

The problem becomes kind of evident when they’re all at Gemma’s house, packing the car. Zayn points it out first because Zayn is always sitting around pointing out shit, and maybe he’s trying to get out of going because if they don’t have enough room then he can just pretend to be self-sacrificing and stay at home watching tv and sleeping a lot. So Louis makes his first mistake, shooting Zayn a look, and telling everyone, “I’m sure we can fit. It’s not like the car is _that_ small.”

Zayn gets moodier, if that’s even possible. Louis kind of hopes he doesn’t have to sit with Zayn.

“Just throw a towel over Liam and put him in front.” He says, and Gemma groans.

“Sorry, Liam is going in the back. We’ll just have to open the windows.”

“But it’s so fucking hot outside.” Perrie whines. This is why Louis doesn’t agree to group activities because no one can ever agree.

In truth, they should probably take two cars instead of one, but Harry and Gem’s parents are only paying the gas money for the one vehicle and everyone else is broke, so Louis is not about to take his car, and he’s pretty sure no one else is gonna stick their neck out for it because this was Harry’s dumb idea. Everyone loves Harry, but not that much. He’d have to become Niall first probably.

So after a few arguments about who’s sitting where, they all pile into the car. Louis gets the unwanted middle seat in the front because he’s got the unwanted job of giving directions. But at least he’s not in the back, and at least Harry’s sitting next to him.

“And we’re off!” Harry announces, which gets a whoop out of Niall, and Louis is pretty sure Zayn is already asleep against the window.

 

+

 

Louis’ GPS says that the drive is a little under two hours, but Gemma drives like she’s fucking running from the cops, so they’re making ridiculous time. Even so, people already start complaining, and Louis’ kind of wishes that he’d taken his own car because, even though he loves his friends, he does not love them in a cramped car that is completely void of any cool air whatsoever.

Not only that, but Niall’s been complaining of being hungry since they started, so Perrie keeps shoving crackers into his mouth which he spits all over Louis’ hair every time Gemma accelerates. Which happens _a lot_.  All because Harry wants one week of pure unadulterated bigfoot time.

With this group, Louis thinks he might get five seconds, if he’s lucky.

Zayn finally wakes up around halfway through the trip, and Harry tries to turn around to see what’s going on, accidentally putting his hand on Louis’ thigh and resting the entirety of his weight there. “Hiiiii, sleeping beauty.” Which receives a groan from Zayn, and Louis smacks Harry’s hand away.

“Hey, ya fucker.” Niall says, and he’s trying to reach for Harry’s headrest, but hits Louis’ head instead, and Louis is just about done with everyone in this fucking car.

He turns around in the seat, causing Gemma to swerve a bit and he’s about to give everyone a piece of his mind about how they all need to behave like normal human beings, when Harry is shoving his phone in his hand and pointing to it. “I think we missed the turn.”

“Fucking hell.” He rolls his eyes, turning back around in his seat, and Gemma smacks him in the back of the head because ‘at this rate we’re gonna crash into the fucking guardrail’, and Louis realizes that there was no turn, they need to merge, and they need to merge now.

“Shit, shit, shit, fucking merge now.”

“WHAT?”

“I SAID MERGE!” Louis yells louder, and now Harry’s yelling “EXIT 17, EXIT 17!” and Niall is in the back yelling like a little girl.

Gemma jerks the wheel to the right, nearly hitting the exit sign, the front tires sliding into the grass and the rest of everyone lunges forward in their seats when she hits the breaks, trying to right the car before it hits the guardrail.

“HOLY FUCK.” Liam says which means he’s actually shitting bricks, and he’s gripping onto the back of Gemma’s headrest, and everyone is yelling, and then the car just completely stops.

“IS EVERYONE ALIVE?”

There’s a chorus of no’s so Gemma just keeps driving, a bit slower now, stopping at the light softer than she’s probably ever stopped at a light in her life, and asks, “Which way?”

Louis lets out a breath. “Right. Towards Abingdon, and try not to kill us, thanks.”

She rolls her eyes, and then it’s all business again as she peels out of the intersection.

“Oh my god Gem’s, there is a McDonald’s right up there, if you don’t stop I will murder everyone in this car.” Niall’s saying now, and Gemma nearly gets rear ended by the red car behind them when she tries to turn.

“Freakin’ bug.” And Harry is yelling ‘punch bug’, leaning over Louis to punch Niall in the knee.

Louis hates his friends.

 

+

 

“Are you sure you’re giving me the right directions?” Gemma asks when they’re almost there, or when they’re supposed to be almost there.

“Um, yeah pretty positive.” Louis is looking at his phone but they’re going off road and apparently all of this stuff is unfamiliar even to his phone.

“God, I don’t even have signal.” Zayn is saying, holding his phone up to the roof of the car. “Where the hell are you taking us?”

“I was promised a real campground.” Perrie chimes in and Zayn agrees. Louis kind of does too, but mostly for everyone else’s sake because Zayn is grumpy without a shower, and Liam just smells weird. He’s like all manly or whatever.

Harry turns around in his seat, trying to calm everyone down. “I’m sure wherever we go will be fine. Louis is doing a great job.”

“Well,” Louis is quite appreciative of Harry trying to help, but they’re kind of lost. “I hate to break it to you, but my GPS doesn’t even know where we are so we’re kind of screwed.”

Gemma kind of mulls it over, taking a blind turn without giving any fucks at all and Louis is actually worried she might be trying to kill them. “It’s all the Jefferson National, right? I mean, bf could be anywhere in this area by now.”

“Did you seriously just abbreviate bigfoot to bf?” Louis is asking, but he doesn’t get an answer because Harry is pulling out his handy Virginia map out of the glove compartment and trying to figure out exactly where they are.

“Wise County?”

There’s a small silence in which Gemma takes another turn, barely missing a head on collision with another car.

“Oh! Yeah, I know where we are, I think. I came here like six years ago with my family on vacation.” Niall says.

“Who would come here for vacation?” It’s like Zayn can read Louis’ mind.

Niall shrugs. “I don’t know, we’re Irish. We do weird things. Whatever. Just keep going up this road and you’ll find a campground I think.”

“Well, there’s a church so we can go cleanse our souls in case we die today.” Perrie is chiming in, and maybe she can read Louis’ mind too.

“Shut up, we’re not gonna die.” Gemma very reassuringly tells them, but Louis sees the road up ahead and it doesn’t look pretty.

“Just turn up there.” Harry is saying.

Louis widens his eyes at him. “Harry, that is residential fucking property.”

“Yeah, well they have woods too.”

Gemma is apparently pretending like she’s not the only one in this car who can get fucking arrested, and also the one who owns the car, because she pulls onto the road, and they just keep going till they find this opening where Harry is sure no one can see them, even though it’s right by a house, and they park the car.

“We can’t camp here.” Liam is the one to break the news, like it’s not already common knowledge to anyone with a brain.

Harry just reaches all the way across the car to punch Liam in the shoulder. His crotch is dangerously close to Louis’ face. “Sure we can. We’ll just go a bit farther into the woods, no harm.”

“I’m gonna get fuckin’ eaten by a bear.” Zayn says, curling up on his side of the car. “I’m sleeping in the car.”

“I am too.” Perrie says, and Louis turns around to give her a look. She just scowls.

Then the Styles’ are getting out of the car, and Niall opens the door, pushing Liam out so he can get some fresh air. The car smells like a poor fast food place, and sweaty bodies, and it’s only for that reason that Louis gets out of the car as well, stretching out his limbs. He rolls his eyes when Harry shoots him a smile, trying to hold back his own smile.

“So let’s get out our stuff, yeah? We have to get pretty far down into the woods, so.” Gemma is saying, and Louis kind of hates that she’s the oldest in the group because she has a lot of talent in holding that against them.

Zayn is outside of the car now, cigarette between his lips already and he’s shaking his head at Louis. “You owe me.” He mouths to him, and Louis pretends to look affronted, but he probably does owe him one.

Louis owes himself one for this.

 

“Do you think I should have worn boots?” Niall is asking, as they all walk together, backpacks and tents and duffel bags and all of their shit on their backs or in hand. Louis is already feeling tired and they haven’t even been walking for five minutes. He really needs to get in shape or something. Maybe he should take Liam up on his personal training offer. He cuts a glance over to Liam, who’s got on his hiking boots, a stupid tank, and he’s already sweating from where he’s basically leading the group. Louis reconsiders. He’ll just keep playing soccer thanks very much.

“Why didn’t you bring boots? Jesus, Niall, you’re gonna ruin your trainers.” Gem is saying now. She’s up ahead with Liam too.

Louis is grateful that even though Harry is just as eager as Gemma, he’s staying back to walk with Louis. He bumps his shoulder against Louis, getting his attention to roll his eyes at the rest of the group. Louis laughs.

“Quit laughing and pick up the pace.” Niall yells, skipping ahead, not really worried that much about ruining his shoes.

“Tell it to Zayn.” Louis yells right back, and Zayn grumbles from at least five feet behind the rest of them, carrying a small duffle bag and fixing his quiff.

Perrie has her phone raised to the sky, and Harry’s tapping the screen of his phone too, his shoulder brushing against Louis’ every once in a while as they walk next to each other. “No signal,” He mumbles, pocketing his phone into his way-too-tight jeans.

“Fuck, you mean I won’t be able to talk to my abundance of friends that are not on this trip with me?” Louis asks sarcastically, and Harry shoves him before they fall back in place next to each other again.

“You’re stupid.” But his dimple is showing enough that Louis knows he doesn’t actually mean that.

He pinches Harry’s side, and then pokes his dimple when Harry laughs.

“You two do realize you’re not actually the only ones here right now, don’t you?” Zayn says from behind them.

Louis flips him off, but moves a few unnoticeable centimeters away from Harry nonetheless, rummaging through his bag for water so he’ll at least have something to distract him from the flush on Harry’s face. It’s probably just from walking and carrying all that stuff. Yeah.

 

When they finally find a clearing, they’ve been walking for at least fifteen minutes. Louis reckons if they filmed this they’d probably make millions, or something like that. Harry watches that show where they look for bigfoot, so there’s certainly a demographic for it at least. Anyway, that’s where this whole thing stemmed from, so Louis really kind of hopes they’re filming this ridiculous endeavor.

“What are we supposed to do when we’ve found bigfoot?” Liam is asking, all innocent but Louis is pretty sure Liam would be the first to tackle a bear or something if it tried to attack. He is on the football team after all. Louis forgets how they’re even friends to begin with.

Louis drops his stuff on the ground next to Harry’s. It’s subconscious definitely. Everyone is clearing out the brush so they can set up their tents, besides Zayn and Louis. It’s not a huge clearing, but they’ve deemed it large enough for three tents at least.

Harry crosses over to rummage through his bag, “We’re gonna catch him on camera.” He tells Liam, producing at least three cameras and four extra batteries. Louis didn’t even know he owned all that stuff. He also pulls out a tripod, and starts setting everything up.

“Oh please, don’t get me on camera.” Zayn groans, covering his face with part of the tent him and Liam are already working on setting up. “I’m not gonna be able to shower and it’s just not gonna be good at all.”

Gemma rolls her eyes, grabbing one of the cameras and turning it on. She faces it toward Niall. “Niall, how are you feeling? Confident?”

“I don’t have a tent.” He frowns, ignoring the camera in favor of looking around at ground, like the tent will just magically appear there.

“Wha- Oh my god.” She turns off the camera. “What do you mean?”

Niall shrugs, and sometimes Louis wonders if maybe he’s a little afraid of Gemma. Maybe he likes her a little. A junior with a crush. Louis resists the urge to coo at them. “Like, you and Perrie are gonna share a tent because you’re girls. You obviously can’t separate Louis and Harry,” Louis takes a subtle step away from where he’s standing next to Harry. “And Zayn and Liam have apparently already claimed that tent.”

Zayn drops the pegs he’s holding and they go clattering to the ground. “You’re crazy if you think I’m actually sharing a tent with Liam. Do you know how _humid_ a tent gets? Do you know how much Liam sweats?”

Liam frowns, looking something akin to kicked puppy. “Heyyy, I don’t sweat _that_ much. You guys always talk about it like I’m a fire hose or something.”

“Well then I’ll share with Liam.” Niall says, shrugging.

“Yeah right, like I’m going to share with those two.” He gestures towards Louis and Harry. Harry’s crouched forward, fixing the tripod to the ground, and he looks up briefly to see who Zayn is referring to. When he realizes “those two” means him and Louis he looks down again immediately, focusing even harder on what he was doing before.

“You’re so complicated Zayn.” Louis tells him, occupying himself by pulling the second tent out of one of the bags. “Just share with Niall and Liam.”

If Zayn was a cartoon there would be a raincloud over his head. He frowns, and he goes to continue helping Liam, but Liam is already done. His tent looks great and Louis is actually really jealous. Then Liam offers to help the girls and Louis tries to devise a way in his mind to get Liam to help him too.

Instead though, he’s got arms curling around him from behind, taking the tent out of his hands. “Need help?”

Louis can almost feel Harry smiling behind him as he lets go of his hold on the tent and steps under and out of Harry’s arms. “If you don’t mind doing all of the work.” He says, taking a seat on Harry’s duffel.

Harry rolls his eyes. “Typical.” But he doesn’t seem too upset, and anyway it’s a double win for Louis because he doesn’t need to do any work and he gets to watch Harry while he does it.

Over where Liam is setting up the girls’ tent, Gemma is trying to film Niall again. She asks him if he’s feeling confident again and he gets the way he does whenever he’s trying to charm a girl and says, “I’m well confident we’ll be finding bigfoot” and Louis kind of maybe rolls his eyes.

The problem with this entire group is that everyone is in love with everyone, and the people who are loved have no idea that they’re loved, and most definitely don’t reciprocate the feeling. Gemma is way too old for Niall, and she has a boyfriend anyway who’s traveling the world, and poor Niall is just a junior who doesn’t stand a chance. And then there’s the horrible intricacies of the Zayn-Liam-Perrie love triangle, and Louis would definitely rather not get into that one.

In addition to all of that, Louis is kind of in the same boat as his pathetic friends, what with his insatiable infatuation with his best friend. Well, technically Zayn is his best friend, and even more technically Gemma is his best friend, but he likes Harry best.

He shakes his head and decides that maybe watching Harry isn’t really helping, like, at all. So he stands up, dragging Niall out of the camera shot – he’s talking about how bigfoot could be lurking in these very woods, and Louis is pretty sure Gemma just gets a kick out of Niall’s Irishness – and leaves under the pretense of finding firewood and a couple of stumps to use as chairs, not that he’ll be carrying them.

 

+

 

By the time they get back to the campground, each of them carrying what Louis deemed as “splinter-givers” instead of logs, there is a full-on argument broken out.

The scene is clearly one of peril, while Zayn is obviously nonexistent and Harry is sitting on his duffel with an awfully forlorn look on his face. Louis doesn’t like it.

It turns out not to be so much of an argument as it is the girls just ranting about how stupid Niall is, and Louis is suddenly interested in how anyone could be this mad at Niall, and what horrible things he must’ve done.

“You absolute fucking idiot.” And mostly it’s the calm way that Gemma says it that makes Niall cower in fear behind Louis.

“What the hell did he do?” Louis is genuinely curious.

“Gems, just let it go, me and Louis can go get it. It’s not a big deal.”

“Get what? What did he do?”

Niall kind of peeks his head out from behind Louis. “Yeah, what did I do?”

Liam appears from the shadows like he’s fucking batman or something, with more firewood in his arms and he’s literally straight-faced when he says, “Niall you forgot the goddamn food.”

Louis nearly passes out.

“Listen,” Niall says, and like, Louis is almost not paying attention because of the peril going through his mind. He keeps imagining life or death scenarios in which he’s probably going to have to eat Harry before he eats Zayn because he hasn’t got any meat on his bones. It’s not helping him in his whole, trying not to pass out endeavor. “It’s probably just in the car, I mean, I’m not _that_ irresponsible, we-“

“Me and Louis can go.” Harry says, shrugging. Louis kind of hates him because he _really_ doesn’t want to walk anymore, but he also likes him and wants to write his own name in a notebook with Harry’s last name so like, he’s gonna go with him wherever maybe. “And if it’s not in the car we’ll just drive to the store.”

Gemma sighs, and it’s obvious she’d rather send anyone than her little brother in the car with someone like Louis, not that he could possibly be a worse driver than her. “What if you get lost?”

“We won’t. I remember exactly where the Food City was, so.”

Watching Harry trying to convince his sister right now is like watching Louis try to convince Zayn of anything. “Are you sure I shouldn’t go with you, and like, drive _my_ car? Or maybe Niall– no not Niall we’re gonna tie him to a tree.”

“We’ll be fine, we’ll be back before you can say Weetabix.”

“God, shut up, Harold. Let’s go, we’re burning daylight.” Louis says, rolling his eyes. He tries to restrain his fond for when Harry isn’t looking. They start getting up, and Harry grabs one of the cameras as well as Gemma’s keys from her bag.

“If you don’t come back before dark I’m calling the cops.” She tells them as their walking away.

 “With what? You’ve got no signal!” He yells over his shoulder and shoots a wink towards Harry.

Harry tries to restrain a giggle and Louis is in love with an idiot.

 

The walk through the woods is definitely worse this time. It feels longer for some reason and Louis is pretty sure they’re not going the right way. Maybe.

“Why didn’t we like mark the trees on the way here, or maybe leave a trail of breadcrumbs?”

Harry hasn’t seemed to stop smiling, and his dimple is all on display when he shrugs at Louis. “Dunno.”

“Do you know which way we’re going?”

“Louis Tomlinson, I was a cub scout, I know exactly where we’re going.”

Louis scoffs, “That was like in third grade, and you and Liam won’t let that go.”

Harry smirks. “You could have been a cub scout too if you hadn’t thrown up on Mr. Winston’s shoes.”

He shakes his head and throws Harry a fake-glare. “I swear to god if you don’t stop talking right now– If I had been a cub scout I would have ended up like you and Liam.”

Harry pretends to look offended, but Louis knows that Harry really likes Louis. Not in that way, but in like a I’m-probably-gonna-copy-everything-you-say-and-do-because-I-think-you’re-cool kind of way. The attention is nice even if Louis’ feelings are one-sided. He’ll take a cute little copycat with dimples any day.

“Mr. Winston was a menace anyway, and you loved him way too much for it to be normal.”

Harry laughs. “I did not! That is so weird.”

Louis bumps his shoulder. “You wanted your mom to _marry_ him.”

Harry bumps him back. “Maybe _I_ wanted to marry him.”

Louis pushes him even harder. “Ew! You sicko.”

He rolls his eyes. “I was _seven_.”

“Hm, still.“ Louis shrugs. “Race you.” And that’s the end of that conversation.

 

In hindsight it was probably a bad idea to try and race Harry, especially since he’s just joined the football team last school year, and his running skills have improved amazingly. He’s still all clumsy limbs and pigeon toed feet, but when he’s on the field he’s not clumsy at all. The long limbs are probably to his advantage too, so that’s obviously why he beats Louis to the car.

Not that Louis is so wildly out of shape that Louis beats him by a longshot, like, he plays soccer all the time. But he plays with Niall, and Niall is like really shit at it so Louis doesn’t really put everything into it. He starts reconsidering Liam’s offer.

Harry rummages through the back trying to find food, but Niall is apparently _really_ an idiot and forgot to bring anything at all, so to the store it is.

Harry starts getting into the driver’s seat so Louis climbs through the passenger seat to where Harry’s sitting trying to snatch the keys from his hands, but mostly just ending up a tangle of limbs and accidentally honking the horn. His face is really close to Harry’s crotch.

It would be a horrible time for anyone to see them like this, especially with how red Louis’ face has gotten, but he’s still determined to get the keys, even with Harry unknowingly pressing Louis’ face harder into his thigh. Louis should not find this hot, he should not find this hot, heshouldnotfindthishot. Unfortunately, Louis doesn’t normally get his way, which is probably why he’s on a camping trip in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of his whiny friends, so it’s probably also why at this moment with his face smushed up against Harry’s thigh, looking more or less like he’s about to suck Harry off, a man comes and taps on the window.

Louis freaks out. Maybe. Probably. Harry loosens his grip on Louis slowly, handing him the keys and getting out of the car with an award-winning smile. Louis is confused.

“Hi sir, is there a problem?” Harry asks, and it’s like no matter what, whenever he’s talking to an older person, his drawl is about ten times heavier than usual. Louis isn’t sure if it’s cute or just like, disturbing.

“Well son, I believe you’ve parked your car here on my property.”

Harry nods. “Yessir. Uh, should we move?”

“Now hold up now, I just want to know why ya’ll are here and why ya’ll are honking your horn like that.” He doesn’t seem upset, and Louis is grateful. He thought he’d have to dodge shotgun bullets when he first saw him. He’s just a little old man though.

Harry chokes a little bit, and Louis can tell maybe he’s slightly nervous to be talking to this guy, and maybe he doesn’t want to tell him that they’re camping in what could be his backyard property.

Harry settles on, “The honking was my friends fault,” and Louis shoots him a glare even though Harry’s not looking. “And, we’re looking for Bigfoot.”

The man pauses for about the longest five seconds of Louis’ life. “Well, alright. Do you boys want anythin’ to drink?” He’s strangely normal about this.

Harry shakes his head and politely declines. “Sorry, no we’re just headed out for a bit. We forgot some supplies. Thank you though.”

“Be careful.” The man says, as Harry gets back into the car.

“Thanks.”

“Have a good’un.” And then the man is walking back to his house and Louis is so glad he didn’t shoot them that he could kiss Harry, except he could kiss Harry all the time, so.

“There is still no way you’re driving.” Louis says, holding up the keys that he is now in possession of. “Budge over.”

“But, Louuuu. I probably saved our lives just then.”

Louis just looks at him.

They end up doing the awkward climbing over each other thing, because both of them refuse to leave the car to switch seats, and there’s a middle seat made just for scooting over. At least, that’s what Harry says.

And then Louis drives off, trying to figure out exactly how it’s so hard for Gemma to actually drive safe when she’s got such a reliable car. Harry’s better off being in the car with Louis driving, and he’d _never_ let Harry drive. Bad driving runs in the family. Even Anne is a shit driver.

“I’m gonna have to teach you how to drive this thing one day.”

Harry frowns. “I passed my test, I know how to drive.”

Louis smiles. “You might have passed your test, but that’s only because you took it four times, and the guy never wanted to see you again.”

Harry scoffs and rolls his eyes. “We can’t all be perfect and get it on the first try, Tommo.”

“I can.”

“Shove off, you’re so full of yourself.”

Louis leans over and pokes him in the side. “You love it.”

Harry turns on the radio, turning the knob trying to find a decent station and then leans back against the seat, deciding against the radio all together, and sighing, closing his eyes. “I’m tired.”

“It’s all the walking. Take a nap if you’d like.”

He shakes his head, eyes still closed. “We should do like, a question game.”

“What are you, a thirteen year old girl? I already know everything about you.”

Harry shrugs. “Yeah, I doubt it. Just play.”

“Fine.” Louis relents. “You ask the first question.”

“Have you ever tried smoking?” Is the first question he asks, and Louis wonders if maybe he’s thought of questions ahead of time or if he’s just good at thinking of stuff that Louis has never told him.

Louis waits a second before answering, gets Harry to open his eyes and watch him while he thinks about his answer. “Yes– How about you just ask the questions?”

Harry scoffs rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling.

Louis already doesn’t like this game. “Well, have you ever tried smoking?”

Harry shakes his head. “God, no. I’m afraid I’ll die or something.” There’s a bit of silence and then, “Do you have a crush on someone?”

Louis breathes out, tries to act normal. It’s just a normal question. “Yeah.”

“Who is it?”

“Ha-ha. Very funny, Harold. Do _you_ have a crush?”

Harry nods, and if Louis hadn’t glanced over he probably would have missed it.

If his heart sinks a little bit, Louis would never tell. “Oooh, how cute.”

Harry laughs, flips Louis off. “Have you ever kissed a boy?”

Louis is very conscious of the fact that he’s driving and therefore needs to be even more careful not to crash the car off the side of the road. They would definitely die; it’s pretty far down. “Um, yes?”

“Really?”

Louis steels himself, tries to go for nonchalant. “I mean yeah, it was nothing.” The thing is, he’s known he was gay ever since he was younger. Although he never had a name for it until he was about thirteen, he always just sort of knew. Especially when he started dating Hannah, and then shut Stan out because he had a stupid crush on him, which, no thanks.

So one time him and Zayn snuck out, they went to some nasty club with horrible music just an hour outside of town, and Louis let some guy make-out with him in the back corner before Zayn was dragging him out of the building and asking him questions. Thankfully Louis was able to nab probably the second only gay person in Wythville as a best friend, and they sort of have a mutual understanding that neither of them are probably ever going to come out until college.

Louis might be a little nervous what Harry thinks too. He’s had this crush on him for a while, but Harry was raised going to church and like, he listens to a pastor on the radio by choice on Sunday morning and shit, so it’s a bit scary to think that he might hate Louis for who he is. He knows Harry isn’t like that, and maybe it’s an irrational fear, but it’s a possibility probably.

“Who was it?”

“Um,” Louis tries to think of what’s worse, lying and saying it was Zayn, or just confessing that it was some random guy and letting Harry judge him. “Just someone I met, like– I didn’t really know him or anything. What about you?”

“Oh, no I haven’t. I mean, I think maybe I’d like to try it? Sorry, that sounds weird.” Harry isn’t looking at him and Louis notices he’s blushing, so okay, maybe this isn’t so bad. “Next question. Have you ever jerked off thinking of someone you know?”

Louis damn near slams on the breaks and crashes the car into a ditch. “Jesus, Harry.”

He bites his knuckle like he does whenever he’s nervous, but he’s also got that smile he gets whenever he’s telling a dirty joke or something. He lets out a little laugh. “Kidding.”

Louis is going to choke on his own spit and die. “You’re dirty.”

Harry barks out a laugh, and then covers his own mouth. “Not that I’d judge you if you did.”

Louis shakes his head.  “Stop being weird.”

“But have you?”

He gives Harry a look, “I think that’s enough for today, Harold.”

Harry just smirks.

Louis rolls his eyes. “Shut up and take a nap.”

 

+

 

Louis is stuck with a bunch of weirdoes.

The problem is that everyone has a problem. They literally bought the essentials of camping food and that’s apparently an issue. Perrie doesn’t eat meat all of the sudden - although Louis is sure she’d eat it if it was Zayn’s - and then Liam is complaining about them getting the wrong brand of hotdogs, like heaven forbid them not have enough money to get the expensive non-processed brand just for Liam. But then he offers to help cook them, so like. Liam is so complicated. Louis doesn’t understand the appeal of him, but whatever, he’ll leave that to Zayn.

They also managed to get more alcohol, thanks to Louis’ fake ID and his talent for looking older than he is. Also the fact that people in this town barely take a second glance to someone’s ID; that helps a little bit. Thankfully now they have enough alcohol for Louis to get through the first night without considering sleeping in the middle of the woods so maybe something will eat him. And also to get through spending the night in a tent with Harry, because that kind of makes him want to go sleep in the middle of the woods too. Not that he’s complaining, or at least he’s complaining less in his head than Zayn is doing out loud. Apparently the thought of sharing a tent with Liam is repulsive and he wants to let everyone know by means of his grumbling, even though Louis knows Zayn would probably do anything to get Liam’s sweat on him.

“You know, the sexual tension in that tent may kill me.” Niall says quietly to Louis where they’re sitting in front of the fire, watching Liam cook the hotdogs.

Louis represses a laugh because he can’t let Niall know that he cracks him up that much. “I don’t know, Zayn seems pretty disgusted with him.”

Niall does laugh though, and he struggles to keep his voice down when he tells Louis, “Just look at the way he’s watching Liam cook that hotdog.”

When Louis decides to laugh, louder than he anticipated, Harry ends up coming over with a blanket draped over his shoulders sitting next to Louis on a log only meant for one person. Louis might explode.

“What’s so funny?”

“We’ll tell you when you’re older, Harold.” Louis tells him and Niall laughs even harder. Louis decides Niall’s his favorite and he’s going to give him extra marshmallows tonight.

 

+

 

Louis does end up surviving the night, due to some higher power actually liking him or something for once. He’s thinking it’s probably because he was extra nice to Niall, kind of nice to Perrie, didn’t have _that_ much alcohol, and actually entertained Gemma’s stupid filming. Like, he’s actually a decent person sometimes.

Unfortunately today, Harry has lined up some activity for them, which is apparently what they’re calling torture these days. He keeps explaining his plan and no one is getting it, save for Gemma who is absolutely pumped about the entire thing. Niall and Zayn slept in and Perrie claimed she felt sick because of the fact that she ate meat last night, so it’s just the four of them, and Harry said that should be okay since they’re just baiting, whatever that means, and filming.

Against everyone’s better judgment and being preoccupied with other things, the camera is thrust into Louis’ hands, and he’s taken up the job of filming this entire debacle. Which actually turns out to be quite entertaining, because Louis tries to make everything entertaining.

 

“So Liam,” He starts, pointing the camera at the side of Liam’s face. “How do you deal with your sweating problem on an arduous trek such as this?”

Liam puts his hand over the lens.

Louis is undeterred, and turns the camera to himself, “It seems that Liam is too upset to talk about it. More on that story later. Gemma,” and then the lens is in her face and Louis asks her about her aspirations, and what she hopes to accomplish with her life, sans becoming a professional bigfoot hunter, of course.

Harry doesn’t stop giggling at Louis’ jokes, and his all-around ridiculousness, and it kind of just encourages Louis to continue. Which Gemma finally stops by nudging Harry and saying, “Don’t encourage him.”

“You put me on camera duty! What am I supposed to do, film Liam’s ass while he’s walking?” Louis defends and Harry stifles another giggle.

“Just film the walk.” Gemma says, rolling her eyes, but she isn’t upset. She flips off the camera where Louis has it pointed towards her, and so he decides to keep his commentary to a minimum.

“My ass is nice.” Liam grumbles. He apparently isn’t taking these jokes at his expensive very kindly. He’s kind of moody.

“Sure thing, Payno.” Louis says, giving Liam’s butt a little tap.

“Lou,” Harry says, and Louis’ attention is on him immediately.

“What is it, Haz?”

He points up and instructs Louis to get some footage of the trees, which have a few broken branches no more than probably seven to ten feet up. Louis remembers Harry telling him something about branches but he can’t remember. It had to do with the bigfoot thing, so he shrugs and films the trees while Gemma babbles on about something behind them and so he films her instead. She’s talking about setting up their bait and camera here.

It’s all a bit confusing for Louis and he really should pay more attention, considering the boy of his dreams is super interested in it, and he should at least try to be, but it’s kind of complicated to say the least.

Harry and Gemma make work of setting up what they call the bait, which mainly consists of berries and nuts, while Harry talks about how the broken branches must mean something because that’s just impossible otherwise.

“It could have been the rain.” Liam says and Louis points the camera towards him now where he’s leaning up against a tree. Louis never really pegged him for a skeptic, but Liam is kind of unpredictable.

“Don’t speak so soon, Li. We haven’t had rain in weeks.”

Harry looks up and beams at him and Louis just manages to catch it on camera. He might make this his job for the rest of the trip.

Gemma makes work of setting up the camera while Harry surveys the area a bit more, and Louis films him smelling the air, trying not to snort at his expense.

“We’ll see how it goes.” Harry says, walking back towards Gemma again as she fiddles a bit more with the camera. “Maybe we can come out and do some knocks or something later today. I should probably head back and make something for us to eat though.”

Gemma nods. “Me and Liam can stay back and try some calls now though, and then you and Tommo can maybe try again later too and we’ll see what we get.”

“Okay,” Harry says, and turns towards Louis. “You can quit filming. Let’s head out.”

Louis smiles and catches Gemma’s eye just in time to notice her rolling her eyes. He wants to tackle her to the ground. Instead he just tries to get his smile toward Harry under control. “Here.” He says, and hands him the camera which Harry immediately puts around his neck before they start walking back to the campsite.

“Having fun yet?” Harry asks, and he looks so happy to be doing all of this, being out here and exploring the unknown.

Louis pokes him. “Of course you dolt, it’s tons of fun. Wish we could camp like normal people without all of this nonsense though.” He points behind them, teasing.

Harry pouts and Louis rolls his eyes.

“I’m kidding, babe.”

Harry’s eyes light up again and Louis pretends not to notice how their arms brush as they walk back.

 

+

 

“It’s really easy I promise.”

Louis isn’t convinced.

“Like this. Take a deep breath and then,” Harry instructs further, cupping his hands over his mouth and letting out a long shout. He smiles at Louis. “It’s easy.”

He levels a look at Harry. “You’re literally just screaming, Haz.”

Harry frowns. “There’s a technique to it. It’s got to come from your lungs.”

He’s not impressed.

To be completely honest, he’s kind of embarrassed, maybe a little shy. He’s not usually, but sometimes he’ll get that way around Harry, afraid of what he’ll look like, kind of worried about whether Harry will find him desirable or not, which is ridiculous, yeah, but still. Harry’s so okay with doing whatever he wants and not worrying about anyone around him, and this whole thing is absolutely no exception. Louis can’t be like that. And then there’s the fact that they’ve got a camera on over by the tree, and while it’s not pointing directly at them it can probably pick up most of their noises and dialog, because they can’t risk not having a camera around just in case. “You’re clearly better at it than me.” He tells Harry, plopping down onto the grass, and watching as the younger boy cups his hands around his mouth and shouts again. Louis tries not to find it comical. It’s not really working. At least Harry is adorable though.

“You’re the worst.” Harry says, nudging Louis’ thigh with his toe.

Louis looks up at Harry and sticks his tongue out.

It creates the desired effect though, and Harry plops down right next to him. “Do you want to be doing this?”  
He nods before he even really knows what he’s nodding about because it’s so dumb, but he’s that eager to please Harry. It’s not a lie either, he really does want to be out here; he enjoys spending time with him. “Of course.” Which wins a smile from Harry. “I’m just not so good at this is all.”

Harry rolls his eyes, but it’s fond. “You haven’t even _tried_.”

“I know my limitations.”

“You’re ridiculous.” Harry says, but then he’s reaching into his backpack and getting something else out. Louis hopes he’s getting snacks. “How about we try something easier then, since that’s _so_ hard for you to do.”

Louis snatches Harry’s cap and puts it on himself before leaning back on his elbows. “Hm, what’s that?”

“I brought snacks.” Harry says, handing Louis some candy that he’s apparently stashed away and hidden from Niall. Louis is in love with him.

He tackles Harry and places a horrible kiss to his cheek, and Harry screams in protest, stealing his hat back from Louis in the process.

“Hey,” Louis pouts, making a show of feeling his now hatless head.

Harry places the cap back on Louis head and smiles at him, watching as Louis opens up the bag of candy. “We’ve probably made quite a bit of noise so maybe we’ll move somewhere else and continue doing the calls.” Louis looks over at him, mouth full of candy and Harry adds, “After we’re done with the snacks, of course.” Louis pats him on the head.

“What about knocking? What’s that all about?” Like, he has done some reading at least. He’s not completely useless.

“Oh,” Harry says, and he seems really pleased about Louis asking questions and being interested. “We can try those too, yeah.”

Louis lays back against the ground, not really concerned with getting dirt on him or anything. They’re camping; it kind of comes with the territory. “I read it was like a mating thing.” He says, handing Harry the bag of candy.

“What?” Harry asks, popping a skittle into his mouth.

He shrugs. “Yeah, so we’re really just calling all the horny sasquatch in the area.”

Harry almost chokes and then bursts into a fit of giggles, and yeah okay, maybe Louis is more into this whole thing than he really lets on.

 

+

 

Louis is trying really hard not to be anything more than platonic, just like he would with Zayn or Niall or even Liam. It’s slightly not working, but he’s getting it under control, or at least trying to in situations such as the one he’s in right now.

The thing is, Harry is absolutely 100% completely hot. Like, he’s really attractive and Louis is trying to feel shame for watching him peel off his shirt and toss it into their tent, but he really can’t find it in him. Zayn finally gets his attention and sticks a finger in his mouth, pretending to be gagging, and Louis just flips him off, but then tries to be more conscientious about his staring. Harry’s sister is here after all, so he really should get himself under control. Maybe this whole camping trip was a bad idea, considering he’s sharing a tent with Harry and he can’t even be decent enough to avert his eyes when Harry’s taking off his shirt. He sighs. It’s gonna be a really long week.

 

+

 

Louis is up first thing, heading out with Gemma, Zayn and Perrie to do pretty much the same things they were doing yesterday. The rest of them sleep in because they were all out last night doing calls, considering Niall will probably do just as much for Harry as Louis will, and that’s saying a lot, and Liam is just here to tag along with everyone.

The day kind of drags on and he’s not really feeling up for making funny jokes and interviewing everyone, so he just films Gemma as she explains what exactly they’re doing to Zayn and Perrie. They’re not the most interested group in the world, and Louis hates to admit that he doesn’t feel as excited about this because Harry’s not around. He blames it on being tired.

He tries a few calls, but Gemma judges his performance before just doing it herself and then teaching the other two. He sticks to just filming because that’s what he’s better at apparently.

It’s about two o’clock maybe when they’ve finished eating that Louis starts feeling like he should take a nap or something.

“We’ll just walk a little bit more down that way.” Gemma says, smiling and Louis is wondering where she’s getting all her energy when there’s a voice from behind them.

“Amateurs.”

Louis turns around immediately and resists the urge to jump into Harry’s arms, mostly because the entire group is here, but also because platonic friends don’t do that, right?

Gemma smiles at him, and puts a hand on her hip. “Of course not.” She tells him. “Didn’t you know that we’re actually filming for a tv show?” They really are amateurs though, everyone is completely aware of that fact. It’s mostly for fun, Harry and Gemma’s fun to be exact. And maybe Niall’s too.

Harry laughs, and then reaches out to take the camera from Louis’ hands. “Any good footage?”

“We saw more broken branches, but that was about it.”

“Are those chips?” Niall asks, running over towards Zayn and grabbing the bag of chips from his hands. “Oh my gosh I _love_ you.”

Zayn rakes his fingers through his deflated quiff, because out here he’s lacking a hair dryer, and sighs. “Can we head back, my feet are starting to hurt.”

“But we just got here, Zaynie.” Niall says, throwing an arm around him, and Liam laughs from the background.

Perrie is making a big show of putting her hair up into a bun at the top of her head, and pulling on her tank top to get some air. “It’s so fuckin’ hot.”

“Literally the worst.” Louis agrees.

“As much as I’m up for walking another few hundred feet, I’d like to go back and get something to eat.” Perrie adds, and Louis could kiss her because he’s thinking the exact same thing, despite the fact that they just ate. He wants to drink ice cold water that’s not been sitting in his backpack and he wants to eat burgers. None of that is possible, but at least he can cool down at the campsite.

“Twats, all of you.” Harry is smiling when he says it, so it doesn’t really mean much. Not that it really would if he was serious either.

Louis just hip-checks Harry, who’s rolling his eyes fondly like he always does when Louis is teasing, and gives him a bright smile. “Oh come on, let’s head back. What do you say?”

It looks like Harry is having a serious dilemma in his mind, but then he shakes his head. “You guys can go ahead, we’ve still got a bit of work out here.”

Louis pouts, but he doesn’t want to seem like he’s completely desperate for Harry’s attention so he quickly shrugs, and heads back with Zayn and Perrie in tow, ready to settle down in his tent and maybe take a nap.

 

+

 

Real campfire smores are actually the best thing ever invented, Louis has decided. Even better when he doesn’t even have to make them himself and Harry’s cuddled up in the same blanket, resting his head on Louis’ shoulder.

It’s dark outside, but it’s not too late, and Louis isn’t really worried because they’ve got the fire going and they’ve agreed that no one has to go out and do calls tonight because everyone is beat and Niall has been begging Zayn to read scary stories for them. So that’s the plan, even though Louis isn’t exactly keen on the idea of being scared of the dark the rest of week. He’s glad he doesn’t scare easily, and Zayn will probably tell the same ones he told for him and Liam last week when they came over to spend the night, so that definitely makes things better.

He takes a bite of one of his smores, expertly made by Harry, when Zayn starts.

Louis hasn’t heard this one before.

The thing is, Zayn is into all these really freaking creepy ghost stories, and stories about monsters and creatures that’ll have anyone avoiding camping for at least a year. Which is why Niall, the absolute prick, thought it would be a good idea to tell these stories while they are currently camping. Zayn is a prick too, because he’s definitely adapting the stories to camping experiences when Louis knows they’re probably about like haunted houses or some shit.

It’s like the build up is the worst part too, because he’ll start with the mild stories and then work his way up to the shit-your-pants scary ones. The only redeeming bit is that Harry scares easily so it gives Louis an excuse to cuddle up to him more, and maybe comfort him in the tent when they’re trying to go to sleep. In the way of cuddles obviously, nothing more. Louis isn’t trying to get to any bases with his platonic best friend, to make it clear.

Louis is kind of tuning Zayn out, in favor of staring at Harry, the way he stares so intensely at Zayn, listening to him closely. If he was sitting on a seat he’d be on the edge of it most definitely. The firelight flecks his green eyes with orange and red and lights his face up in the best way. He looks like a fucking vision, the way his eyelashes fall across his cheeks every time he blinks and he’s wearing a top that scoops down just enough that Louis can see his collarbones and he kind of wants to bite them.

He looks away quickly when Harry glances over to him, probably noticing him staring and Louis pretends to be focusing on Zayn, wishing the fire would engulf him because he’s in too fucking deep and horrible at keeping it a secret apparently.

Zayn is talking about a group of teens, much like themselves go figure, finding an abandoned shed in the woods and one of them is contemplating going in. It’s a wonder Louis hasn’t really offered his commentary yet, as he usually does, but he kind of doesn’t really wanna ruin the whole thing this time;  it would ruin his chances of cuddling with a scared Harry. Maybe that’s selfish. He’s not really sure he cares.

The one teenager decides to go inside apparently and Zayn starts describing the state of the horrific body therein, mangled something awful and facing the corner of the room. It’s fucking scary what Louis is picturing, but mainly he’s just thinking how stupid these kids are because who the fuck would go inside an abandoned shed in the middle of the woods and break the padlock on the door. Clearly it’s been keeping something out. Jesus fucking Christ.

Louis can feel Harry fidgeting against him.

Zayn continues, explaining how the guy walks further inside the shed, asking the thing if it’s okay. Louis rolls his eyes, but doesn’t fail to notice when Harry grips his thigh tightly in anticipation.

Zayn pauses excruciatingly long before speaking again. “And then it turns around.”

Niall strategically screams just then, and Harry nearly jumps into Louis’ lap, almost knocking them both into the fire. Perrie and Gemma scream high pitched screams, and Liam nearly falls off of his chair.

Niall is literally cackling when he high-fives Zayn, and Louis isn’t sure if they were in on that together, but it seemed like a ploy to get everyone adequately frightened.

The night kind of drags on the same way, and two stories later Louis has got a lap full of Harry, and their hands clasped together.

“I might be sleeping in Liam’s tent because I need someone to protect me.” Perrie says, once Zayn’s done with the last story, and Niall’s tried the screaming thing again. It wasn’t as good as the first time he did it, but it did get the desired reaction so.

Harry is clinging to Louis’ shirt.

“Well you can have him.” Zayn grumbles. Louis and Niall both give him pointed looks at the same time.

Louis lets go of Harry’s hand to clap his together, and it gives Harry a bit of a start so Louis immediately soothes a hand down his back. “Think it’s time for bed.”

“Hm,” Harry hums, nuzzling into Louis’ shoulder, and Louis could probably fly right about now. It’s not that they don’t cuddle, they cuddle _a lot_ , it’s just that every time Harry touches him he feels like he’s on fire.

Liam ends up agreeing to sleeping in Gemma and Perrie’s tent after he’s done putting the fire out, because they’re both scared shitless even though Gemma won’t admit it. Zayn and Niall are giggling when they settle down inside their tent, and Louis is rolling his eyes at them because they’re both the absolute worst.

Harry is obviously still scared when they crawl into their tent, but he settles into his own sleeping bag and faces away from Louis much like the first night, and Louis tries to swallow his disappointment. It’s not like they always sleep cuddling, usually just on special occasions or whenever Harry wants to, or if Louis is drunk.

It doesn’t take much time staring at the ceiling of the tent before Louis hears some shuffling next to him and then Harry is propping himself up with his arm and whispering at Louis. “Hey, you up?”

“’Course.”

“M’scared.” He whispers shyly, and Louis can imagine if it were lighter in the tent he might see a blush on Harry’s cheeks. “Can I share your sleeping bag?”

Louis tries not to seem too eager even though he literally always wants Harry to jump into his figurative sheets. “Do you even have to ask?” He can make out Harry’s shy smile in the dark, and he’s so gone for this boy, it’s ridiculous. “Get here, you idiot.”

Harry crawls into Louis’ sleeping bag, curling himself around Louis’ body. It’s always like this, he feels like there are sparks everywhere him and Harry are touching, even between their clothes. He tries to keep his breathing even, but they’re so close right now and his heart has definitely picked up speed.

“Zayn’s an expert at scaring isn’t he? Got little Harry all afraid of the outside.” Louis teases, and Harry halfheartedly smacks him in the center of his chest.

“Not scared, and not little.” He seems to be making himself smaller to fit around Louis though. It hasn’t escaped Louis’ notice clearly. “Nearly a foot taller than you.”

Louis jabs him in the stomach with his elbow, but not too hard because he doesn’t want Harry like puking on him or something. “Yeah right, asshole.”

Harry smiles fondly at him despite the name calling. It’s kind of their thing. They both know that they only mean it in the most endearing way possible. “You’re the worst.”

“Only for you, babe.”

Harry laughs and then leans forward, kissing Louis on the nose before he snuggles into him again letting out a little breath. “Night, Lou.”

Louis kisses his curls and stays awake until Harry’s breathing evens and he’s snoring very quietly, lips slightly parted.

 

+

 

Louis has never laughed this hard in his life. “You’re actually the worst oh my god.”

Harry laughs along with him, smacking him on the back of the head. “Don’t you dare judge my choices.”

It’s too late, Louis is already judging him. His entire backpack is filled with fruit. What even is Harry Styles? “Your backpack is literally stocked full of produce.”

“Shut up. Some of it is for baiting at least.” Harry informs him, and then takes a banana out of his backpack, peeling it and taking a bite. Louis averts his eyes because he can’t really take the sight of Harry with a banana in his mouth, unintentionally seducing him. Harry was just born with blowjob lips he can’t help that, but Louis feels better not looking. It’s probably safer. “You sure you don’t want some?”

Someone apparently never told Harry not to talk with a mouth full and accidentally tease their best friend. Louis might strangle him, probably. But he’s really hungry and so he takes an orange out of his bag and saves the strangling for later.

“Good choice.” Harry says, and Louis just shoves him playfully, rolling his eyes.

“You’re the most ridiculous.”

He pokes Louis. “You love it.”

He holds his hands up. “Guilty.”

“Hey, Harry.” Gemma calls from a few feet away. “Can you help me set up the night vision camera?”

“Oh yeah, sure.” He stands up, tossing his banana peel on the tarp that they had the rest of the berries and nuts on. He taps Louis on the nose before heading off to help Gemma. Louis hears him ask her if sasquatch likes banana peel, before Zayn is looming over him smirking.

“What?”  
He just levels him a look. “When are you two gonna get together?”

Louis throws his orange peels at him.

 

+

 

“Do you think you’re up for trying the calls again?” Harry asks Louis as Niall walks around, bag of chips in his hand. He seems to be surveying the area.

“Does it smell like, foul to you guys out here?” He asks, scrunching up his nose and then popping another chip in his mouth.

“No, I- holy shit. That smells fucking vile, jesus.” Louis says, bringing his shirt up to cover his nose.

Harry just perks up, lifting his nose in the air like he actually _wants_ to smell it. “It’s either a skunk or bigfoot is here, oh my god.” There’s a walkie-talkie by his mouth before Louis can even blink and Harry’s telling Gems to get her ass over here.

Niall looks unconvinced, but excited nonetheless.

Like, they can’t just conclude that he’s there because of a gross smell. In fact Louis is more convinced that they should probably go because like, a bear probably just shat all over the place and they might die. That’s literally the only thing going through his mind, and also the fact that he hates the outdoor because of the dangers therein, but anyway, Harry’s pretty determined to find bigfoot so he sticks around against his better judgment.

“Everyone stay quiet.” Harry whispers and then looks at Louis. “Get the camera please.”

So Louis scrambles over to where the camera is sitting on the tripod, filming Harry as he cups his hands around his mouth and shouts.

Niall stifles a laugh and Harry glares at him before trying again, this time more of a low below type of call. Harry’s obviously done his homework on this.

By the time Gemma comes around though, there hasn’t been a call back, no sign of bf and the smell has subsided. Louis is calling this one bear shit because he’s pretty sure that’s all it was. Harry looks pretty deflated though so he interviews Niall and asks him silly questions like, does he ever take off his hat and if he can conjure bags of chips out of thin air. Harry laughs along and Louis tries his hardest to cheer him up.

He has the feeling he’ll be doing that a lot, because like hell are they going to actually find bigfoot.

Poor Harry.

 

+

 

“Psst, Louis.”

He can’t decide which is more stupid, pretending to be asleep when Harry knows he’s awake, or pretending like turning over to face Harry, who is decidedly sleeping way too closely to Louis, isn’t the only thing he wants to do right now.

He settles for neither, figuring out what Harry wants first. “What?”

“Turn around.”

So that’s that. Louis is so tired he’s going to die, but he turns around anyway, poking Harry’s dimple when he smiles at him. “What’s up, curly?”

“Are you having fun yet?” He asks, voice hushed.

“’Course I am, love. Are you having fun?”

Harry nods enthusiastically. “I’ve wanted to do this forever, it’s really great. I mean, I know we might not turn up with any footage at all at the end of the week, but it’s fun anyway.”

Louis hums in agreement. He’s glad Harry is keeping a level head about the whole thing and not being painfully optimistic about finding himself some sasquatch footage. “Well, you know what? I think the whole looking for bigfoot thing is a bit pointless, don’t you?”

Harry kind of frowns, his brows knitting together out of confusion. “Why?”

He tangles their legs together, letting his one foot graze over Harry’s own. “Because I’ve already found him.”

Harry gets it immediately, stifling giggles so he doesn’t wake anyone up. Thankfully all of Louis’ friends are heavy sleepers. “Well,” He says, his voice just slightly deeper that if Louis didn’t pay attention to everything Harry ever does he probably wouldn’t have noticed. “You know what they say about big feet.”

Louis laughs loudly, and then with wide eyes clamps a hand over his mouth. “Oh my god, gross Harry you’re like my little brother.”

He regrets it the moment it passes his lips. It was meant to be funny even though it’s so far from being true, because _no_. Harry is actually not like that at all, and Louis can’t take it back now that he’s said it and it feels wrong, especially when Harry looks at him, scrunching up his nose and frowning.

Also he said _gross_. He basically called Harry’s dick gross, like he doesn’t think of it being in him all the time. _Fuck._

There’s an awkward silence and Harry won’t like, meet Louis’ eyes and it’s excruciatingly quiet, but Louis doesn’t know how to backtrack without confessing everything, and like how would he even begin to explain? He’s kind of an idiot. He should know that Harry hates being treated like a child, especially being the youngest out of the group. And like, sure he teases him about it, but he’s never likened him to a little brother. He thinks maybe he might vomit.

Finally Harry lets out a small breath, and he still doesn’t look at Louis when he speaks up. “How do you really think of me, Louis?”

And this is his chance, he should take it. Tell Harry he means the world to him, that he’d do anything for him because he loves him more than Niall loves cheez-its. Maybe not those words exactly, but something similar. Instead he just ducks his head, bites his lip and then lets out quietly, “You’re just Gemma’s younger brother.”

Harry’s silent again for a while, but then he squirms out of Louis’ sleeping bag and makes his way over to his own, huffing out a sigh and then facing away from Louis.

 

+

 

Louis wakes up the next morning feeling like the worst human being in the world. Maybe he’s overreacting or like, maybe Harry just took it the wrong way (like Louis calling his dick gross) and everything is going to be fine, but when Harry isn’t in the tent when he wakes up he can’t help but feel like an idiot.

His watch says that it’s still an ungodly hour when he puts it on his wrist and he thinks about going back to bed, but he also kind of wants to like, talk to Harry and see if he’s really like, super upset with him or something. So he messes up his hair, gets it to look slightly more presentable and tries not to think about how gross it feels, how long they’ve all been without showers, and then crawls out of the tent.

Harry is outside lifting his backpack onto his shoulders and he gives Louis a soft smile. His curls are pressed flat on one side from sleeping, and he still looks half-awake. Louis loves him so much his heart might explode.

“Where you headed?” He asks quietly, because it’s seems like everyone else is asleep and he doesn’t wanna be a shit by waking them all up.

“Getting the camera to check the footage from last night.”

“Do you need some company?” Louis asks, because the way they’re talking doesn’t seem like Harry’s too upset, even though the air feels kind of weird between them. He doesn’t think he’s risking a lot by offering to go on a walk in the woods with him.

He wraps his hands around his shoulder straps and he looks more guarded than before. “If you want.”

“I most definitely want.” Louis tells him. He’s stepping on boundaries maybe. He feels like things are different than before.

Louis puts on his boots, and then they both trudge through the forest together, the sun just breaking through the clouds, not yet reaching the top of the trees. The sky is pink and grey, and it looks like how Louis feels, calm and sleepy.

“Do you do this every morning?” Louis asks, stepping over a fallen branch, and then glancing back over to Harry.

He just nods.

“Sleepy, are we?”

Harry shrugs.

Louis is going to explode, and not for good reasons this time. He bites back another question, keeps kicking at sticks and rocks as he walks along.

They walk in silence, just their boots making noise along the path, Harry glancing around to check the marks they left on the trees to make sure they’re going the right way. It’s excruciating is what it is, the silence that feels like it stretches on for ages, beyond this goddamn forest even. Louis wants to rip his hair out, wants to tackle Harry to the ground and snog him lifeless, he wants to scream and confess everything. But he can’t, he can’t, it’s not possible, it’s going to ruin everything.

Once they reach the camera, Harry takes it off the tripod and sits down on the ground, playing back the video at double the speed and watching it back. Louis sits next to him.

“Um, Louis?” Harry mumbles, but doesn’t look away from the camera.

“Yeah?”

He breathes out. “I’m sorry that I’m like you’re annoying little brother.”

Louis closes his eyes. He can’t believe he made Harry feel this way, like he wasn’t anything to Louis, like he views him as a little boy. He feels like the worst person ever. “Fuck, I’m an idiot.” Is the first thing that comes out, which is stupid because the first thing tumbling from his lips should be an apology, and maybe even a confession.

Harry sort of chuckles, but it sounds like he’s nervous or upset or something.

“Look, I’m really sorry, Haz. I didn’t mean that really, like-” He scrubs a hand over his face. “You’re my best friend. I don’t- it doesn’t matter to me that you’re younger. There’s barely an age difference, I-“

He lets out a surprised sound when he’s pushed to the ground, Harry looming over him. He’s between his legs and Louis’ brain sort of short circuits with the idea of wrapping his legs around Harry’s back, pulling him closer, just enough to-

“Sorry I overreacted.” Harry says, and he’s smiling now. Louis smiles back and tries not to think of how easy it would be to reach up and tangle his fingers in the back of Harry’s hair, bringing him down for a kiss.

“Hush.” Louis tells him, and god, he can feel his eyes are crinkling and everything. How does Harry not _know_ yet? “ _I_ was a twat.”

Harry hums in agreement and he’s just staring down at Louis so fondly it makes Louis’ chest tight and his head swim. How is Harry not aware of it yet? God, it’s so fucking ridiculous. He’s so close to confessing, so close to making a mistake, feeling so much like he wants to _kiss_ Harry, just kiss him until Harry can’t even think straight. How doesn’t Harry see that in his face?

He reaches up, and his brain is telling him how this is a bad idea, and how they should just get up, pick up the camera and head back. But his heart, it’s going to explode. It’s going to burst out of his chest with such a simple action, just reaching up and curling his palm around Harry’s neck. He’s so close to pulling him forward, so close. He could do it, he could have Harry’s lips on his in a second, it wouldn’t take much at all.

There’s a crack of thunder suddenly, and it’s like someone flicked a switch or something because the rain just starts falling down and Louis doesn’t even care because Harry’s surprised expression is so cute and he’s on top of him and everything is perfect. He wants to kiss Harry in the rain.

But of course they’ve got a camera that they have to pick up and things at the campsite to clear up so it doesn’t get rained on, and Louis really hates being practical, especially right now.

“Fuck.” Harry says, getting off of Louis and quickly shoving the camera in his backpack and folding up the tripod before doing the same with it.

“It’s raining.” Louis says stupidly, getting up and brushing himself off, not that he really needs to. He’s kind of an idiot. An idiot who just wants to kiss Harry.

Harry laughs, slinging his backpack on and grabbing Louis by the hand before running with him back to the campsite.

 

+

 

“We go home in two days.” Harry says off-handedly, just loud enough for everyone to hear. “And there have hardly been any signs of bf.”

They’re all sitting by the fire, and Louis rubs Harry’s knee comfortingly because he can tell that he’s kind of upset about it. Like, it wasn’t really a possibility probably, but Louis can tell that Harry’s disappointed anyway. They all had pretty high hopes, or at least Louis was starting to.

“Maybe we should have like moved around more instead of staying in one place.” Gemma says, but it’s not really helpful now that they’ve got so few days. And it’s actually less than two since they’re heading back on the seventh day.

Zayn shrugs, and Louis doesn’t fail to notice how his head is leaning against Liam’s shoulder. “I’m excited about getting a shower though.”

“Oh my god, yes.” Louis agrees, because a shower would be like the best thing ever. “I might just leave early to get a shower because I can’t take it anymore.”

Harry laughs and punches him in the knee. “I don’t think you smell.”

Gemma snorts and Louis glares at her.

“Of course I don’t smell. I never smell.”

Perrie rolls her eyes. “Yeah right. I took gymnastics with you.”

Louis groans in protest. “That was like six years ago and I didn’t care about hygiene then. We promised we’d never speak of it again.”

She just laughs and so does Niall because he remembers the dreaded gymnastics days too; he was a part of them. It’s a blessing and a curse to still be friends with the people you grew up with, Louis has learned that the hard way.

“I’m beat, I’m heading to bed.” Liam says, and Zayn says he’s gonna join him which makes Louis start laughing and Zayn flips him off.

“We’re gonna go out and do calls, Harry do you wanna come with?” Gemma asks. “It’s just me, Perrie and Niall. Louis, you can come too.”

Harry just snuggles back against Louis and yawns. “It’s warm here. Maybe tomorrow night.”

“Okay, love.” She says, and then they’re all getting set up with their walkie-talkies, flashlights, and backpacks.

“Me and you can go tomorrow.” Harry whispers in Louis’ ear, and then a bit louder he adds, “I’m sleepy, let’s go to bed.”

Louis would probably jump off a cliff if Harry asked him to. “Niall, will you put out the fire when you get back?”

He nods, and then Harry’s getting up and dragging Louis into their tent. He’s barely got enough time to take off his shoes before Harry’s tugging him inside.

He’s laughing uncontrollably by the time they both settle down in the same sleeping bag, and Harry covers his mouth with his hand and it just makes Louis laugh harder.

“Stop.” Harry says, but he’s laughing too. “You might wake Liam and Zayn.” He waggles his eyebrows and Louis just loses it.

“Oh my god, you’re horrible.” He says, poking Harry in the stomach, but then there’s the realization of how close they’re facing each other and the laughter kind of dies down.

Harry smiles at him, and he pokes him again, only in the dimple this time. It’s his favorite thing to do; he really enjoys a good dimple so sue him.

He swallows. “So do you think we’ll find bigfoot before the weeks ov-”

Harry kisses him.

Like actually leans forward and puts his lips on Louis’ and it’s not entirely chaste either, with his lips all parted and Louis fucking freaks out because this is- it doesn’t make sense.

He’s kind of the worst ever and he pushes Harry away. It’s not because he doesn’t want to kiss him, he’s just not sure he wants it like this. They’ve not had a lot to drink, but he knows Harry has no tolerance and he’s tired on top of that and Louis knows nothing about Harry’s intentions. He could just be like, horny or something and Louis- god, he wants Harry so much, but not like this.

Harry whines a little when he’s pushed away, and turns his head into the pillow. The last thing Louis wanted to do was embarrass him, but here they are.

“Harry,” He says, all soft and maybe it sounds a little patronizing but that’s not his fault, he means it as sweetly as possible. He pulls him close, makes Harry look at him, presses a kiss to his cheek.

“M’not drunk.” Harry grumbles into his chest because he fucking _knows_ what Louis is thinking. “I just- fuck, Lou. _I like you_.”

“I like you too.” Louis says back because he’s just kind of frozen. Like, it’s not adding up and he’s so confused. He’s like completely dumbstruck basically, like he’s fucking at a complete loss for words. Which is odd, for him.

He bites at Louis’ shirt, right at his sternum, humming contentedly, like he didn’t just get turned down completely. He may not be drunk, but he’s not far from it. “Why’d you push me away then?”

“We can’t, Harry. I- like, I’m not even _out_ yet or anything and your sister would probably kill me. And- I just- you’re so young right now and I don’t wanna ruin our friendship. You mean the world to me.” This isn’t the way he imagined this conversation going and he certainly didn’t expect Harry to be the one to initiate it, drunk or not.

“Okay.” Harry says, and like _wow._ Okay. Louis wasn’t really expecting that kind of reaction. “We’ll talk about it when I can make a better argument.” He looks up at Louis smiling. “Will you kiss me back at least though?”

Louis lets out a laugh that sounds more like a sigh of relief than anything and just shakes his head at Harry because he’s so fucking adorable. “Yeah, but just one kiss.”

Harry beams. “How about two?”

“Fine.” Louis rolls his eyes, and then leans down to meet his lips with Harry’s.

 

+

 

It doesn’t really change things that much and they don’t really end up having a talk about it. Louis knows Harry remembers because a) he wasn’t that drunk, and b) he keeps smiling at Louis like they have some sort of secret, which he guesses they kind of do.

They just go out and explore more than they have the past few days, because it’s the last day to and Harry really wants to find some signs, like anything really; he seems a bit desperate at this point. Especially since they’re not going out tonight to do calls or anything, because everyone voted they have their last night by the campfire singing campfire songs or something. That part was mostly Niall’s idea, but they’ll probably just end up talking and having a good time before they have to leave.

Louis isn’t looking forward to the leaving part. Mostly because they’ve got to pack up and then get back into the car and hopefully not die with Gemma’s driving. He _is_ looking forward to the getting home part though because he wants to take a shower, and he wants to think about this whole week and what it’s meant for him and Harry. Maybe they can talk about it then, like when they’re actually in the real world and not thinking about summer and camping and like, fucking bigfoot or whatever. It would be a nice change anyway.

Everyone gets kind of tired around the evening time, and Niall entices them all with the promise of making pot noodles over the fire. They’re the best campers in the world.

“Harry, you comin’?” Niall asks, and maybe Louis is lagging behind with him because Harry hasn’t started following after the group yet, but that’s his business.

“Um, maybe me and Lou will catch up with you guys in a bit. I still have a lot to do- I think. So,” He kind of trails off and Louis realizes he’s expected to stay with Harry. It’s not really a surprising realization in itself, it’s just that he’s kind of nervous that Harry wants to talk about last night or something like that, and it’s scary because he’s not sure he’s ready for any of this, not yet. It might be stupid or whatever, but he’s just really worried it’ll ruin everything.

“Alright.” Niall says, sneaking a glance over to Louis, eyebrow raised, and then skipping off again to join the group.

Harry lets out a sigh and turns to Louis. “Hi.”

“Hi yourself.” Louis is nervous and he doesn’t even understand why he’s so fucking nervous. It’s horrible.

Harry smiles at him for a moment, and they just kind of stand in silence for a second longer. “So, can we talk?”

Louis shrugs. He doesn’t want to seem like it’s not a big deal, it’s a _huge_ deal, but that’s just how he deals with things.

“Okay.” Harry sits down on the ground, smiles at Louis again, so Louis sits down too.

“What did you have in mind?”

“Um,” Harry seems nervous too, the way he’s rubbing his hands together and not looking at Louis. “So no bigfoot.” He laughs sort of pitifully. “Do you think this trip was like, stupid?”

Louis dares to reach out and put his hand on Harry’s knee. “Of course not, babe. I had a lot of fun and I think everyone else did too.”

Harry looks up at him now, but not really at his eyes, just sort of in his general direction. “I really liked kissing you, you know.”

Louis wants to explode. “Harry-“

“I know,” He continues, and Louis wasn’t ready for this, he may never be ready. Harry is always so passionate about things, so self-assured and willing. “I’m young right now and you’re going off to college and neither of us really knows what we want, but like- shit, okay. I’ve liked you for at least two years now, probably more. I don’t know- I just keep thinking about us together and I didn’t think it was like- fuck, I didn’t think any of it was possible, and maybe it’s not? But I kind of want it to be because it’s literally all I think about all the time because you’re so amazing and so nice to me and so incredible, and- like, you’re really beautiful. I just want to kiss you again and then a million more times after that, and I’m sorry if this scares you away because I tend to do that and I get really intense about stuff, but I don’t really care if it ruins everything because I think it’s kind of too late for that.” Then he shrugs, but now he’s looking at Louis in the eyes, and it’s like so much all at once. Louis is already repeating it in his head, wondering what he should say next, what he should _do_ next. Like, it’s a lot. And he’s wanted Harry for so fucking long and he never thought that Harry would feel as intensely as Louis does about it. That idea never crossed his mind.

Suddenly all of Louis’ worries kind of vanish, because with Harry it’s easy, it’s always been easy.

He wants to tell everything but it kind of gets stuck in his throat and the only thing that comes out is, “You really think I’m beautiful?”

Harry laughs, more confident now it seems. “Of course I do, who wouldn’t?”

“I’m gonna kiss you now.”

Harry lets out a breath that sounds like relief washing over him and he smiles wider than Louis has probably ever seen him smile. “Wait, really?”

“Fuck, yes of course, you absolute idiot. I’m basically in love with you.”

He realizes it the moment it comes out and his eyes go wide, but Harry doesn’t really seem surprised by it, just nearly tackles Louis to the ground, like a repeat of the other day, except for this time he’s kissing Louis senseless.

It’s all giggles and too much smiling to kiss like normal people, but Louis is so happy. Like, he doesn’t have to worry now because it’s obvious that they both want this as much as each other, and it’s so relieving. He can wrap his legs around Harry’s waist and bring him closer if he wants to, he can touch him without worrying about implications, and he can kiss him whenever the hell he wants to kiss him.

“Be my boyfriend.” He says when he pulls away, and Harry gives him a funny look.

“I thought that was implied.”

He rolls his eyes. “Whatever, I wanted to be romantic. Kiss me again.”

So Harry does, and this time it’s more heated, less teeth and less laughing. Louis pinches Harry’s side, taking the opportunity when Harry laughs to lick into Harry’s mouth and enjoy how his laugh gets cut short into a surprised hum.  He doesn’t have a lot of experience with this, neither of them does really, but he’d like to think this is going well. He just wants Harry to be happy honestly.

Harry gets on board with it easily, giving Louis access to his mouth, and humming happily every time Louis brushes Harry’s tongue with his own. Harry laughs when Louis pulls away to kiss at his neck, and he laughs even when Louis is sucking a bruise onto his collarbone.

“What’s so funny?” He asks, licking over where he left his mark. Harry shudders but doesn’t stop giggling.

“Nothing, I’m sorry. It’s just all kind of perfect. You’re perfect.” He brings a hand up to his neck, like he can feel where Louis has left his mark. “I just sort of can’t believe this is happening.”

Louis hums in agreement. “Me too.”

Harry kisses him again, and then two more times, quick little pecks. “Sorry for laughing.”

Louis smiles at him; he can’t help it. He’s so adorable and Louis thinks he might be the luckiest person in the entire world. “You’re ridiculous.”

He bites his lip. “I know.”

“Love you for that.” Louis says, before leaning up and catching Harry’s lips for another bruising kiss, letting Harry take over a little bit this time. It’s only when Harry playfully bites at Louis bottom lip that Louis can’t take anymore. He uses too much strength for his liking to flip Harry over so he’s on top of him. He’s probably got dirt of his back but he can’t really be bothered to care, especially not when he’ll probably be taking off the shirt anyway.

“Hey,” Louis says, and Harry looks at him curiously. “Is it really true what you said about big feet.”

Harry brings up his arm to cover his face and stifle his laughter. “Oh my god.” He starts, but then when he lowers his arm he realizes that Louis is being genuinely serious, so he goes the coy route, fluttering his eyelashes and muttering, “Maybe.”

“Hm, let’s find out then, yeah?”

“Wait.” Harry says, removing his hand from where it was resting at Louis’ hip and feeling around them for his backpack.

Louis leans over and grabs it for him. “What do you need?”

Harry shakes his head, rummaging through the bag for his jacket. “Here, we can put this under us.”

Louis can’t help but laugh, burying his head in the crook of Harry’s neck. “Are we being stupid? Like, should we wait maybe?”

Harry shakes his head, resting his hand against Louis’ back. “I can’t wait.”

Louis knows that Harry doesn’t just mean that because of the semi he’s sporting, which Louis may or may not be mirroring, he’s saying it because he really can’t. They’ve waited this long, and it would really feel like torture to have to hold it off for any longer. Louis knows the feeling, he’s been waiting for this moment for god only knows how long, and now it’s finally here and he can’t believe he suggested something as impractical as waiting till later. It’s obvious they can’t do it later in the tent, if anyone heard them they’d never live it down, and Louis really doesn’t want to be made to keep quiet, and he certainly doesn’t want Harry to keep quiet. He doesn’t even think about waiting till they’re home, that’s not an option. It has to be now, and that’s okay. Louis is okay with that.

“Yeah,” He breathes. “Okay, yeah.”

So they shuffle around, trying to get Harry’s super huge jacket laid out so they can lie on top of it, Louis on top of Harry like before.

He tugs on the hem of Harry’s top. “Get this off.”

Harry laughs harder than is probably necessary when his shirt gets caught on his head because of his cap.

“Why is this still on your head?” Louis asks, but not unkindly. He takes it off the hat and sets it gingerly on the ground next to them. “Let’s do this proper.” He shucks off his shirt when Harry’s is finally off, and he knows this is probably the worst idea he’s ever had because it’s not really advisable to chuck your clothing off in the middle of a forest when it’s nearly dark, but he’s kind of beyond caring at this point.

Harry smiles at him, Louis resisting the urge to mark all up and down Harry’s perfect torso, and takes of Louis’ glasses, setting them down softly inside his hat and then leaning up to kiss Louis on the cheek.

Louis kisses Harry all cautious and careful as he starts to undo his jeans but Harry moves to push him away, his cheeks dusted pink and his eyes downcast. Louis captures his hands in his own and when Harry looks up at him his eyes are possibly the darkest Louis has ever seen them. They look like the trees do at night and Louis thinks they’re so beautiful he forgets to ask what’s wrong.

“You’re shaking.” He settles for.

Harry looks away from him again, and no, that’s not good.

“We don’t have to.” He tells Harry, even though that’s not really what he’s thinking. He would stop if Harry wanted him to though, if he didn’t feel comfortable.

He shakes his head, looks at Louis again. “I’m just nervous. What if you don’t- like, what if I’m not good?”

Louis is actually surprised that Harry would even be worried about that. “It’s not like I’ve had a lot of experience, you know.” That’s obviously not the right answer if the way Harry turns away again is any indication. “Hey,” Louis tries again, turning Harry by his chin to look at his eyes. He strokes a finger down Harry’s cheek. “It’s already up,” He says, gesturing in the general direction of his dick. “There’s not really much you can do wrong from here.”

Harry laughs at that. His cheeks still stained pink but at least he’s smiling now.

“Besides that, you’re perfect.” Louis adds, serious now, and then kisses him all soft and slow just so he knows how much Louis means it.

And then Harry’s rolling his hips up to meet Louis’ and they both gasp into each other’s mouths. Harry is going to be the death of him.

“Pants off. Now.”

Harry laughs, and helps Louis with his own jeans instead of focusing on his own like he should be doing. Louis would protest but it’s nice to be undressed, and Harry is so fucking beautiful with his lip caught between his teeth and his look of concentration as he undoes Louis’ button like he’s never seen a pair of fucking pants before.

Once they’re off Harry doesn’t hesitate to palm Louis’ cock through his boxers before taking them off completely and getting a hand on Louis.

“Not fair.” Louis groans, resting a head on Harry’s shoulder, which is slightly sweaty considering the heat in the summer. It doesn’t matter if they’re inside or outside, the heat is sweltering. Also of course the fact that things are quite heated between them too, but that’s beside the point.

Louis really, really wants to get Harry’s pants off and he really wants to ravish him and get as many things done as possible, but like, he’s kind of helpless to do anything besides whine and moan whenever Harry moves his hand a certain way or thumbs at the head of Louis’ cock.

And like, Harry is really _good_ at this, not that Louis has really had experience with it, but it’s better than when he does it himself anyway. His mind is going places, like to how much Harry must do this to himself, maybe getting two fingers inside of himself and whimpering. He thinks about how the first day they were here and Harry asked him if he’d ever wanked off to someone he knew, and how Harry must do that otherwise he wouldn’t have considered it. Maybe thinks about Louis, thinks about Louis doing this to him, or god- getting fucked by him.

He looks down at Harry, who has a thin sheen of sweat over his chest, and he’s looking down at what he’s doing to Louis with this like, concentration and this sort of _hunger_ almost. Louis thinks about what Harry must look like when he comes and that’s when he loses it. He comes between them like an overly excited teenager. Which like, he kind of is.

Harry’s eyes go wide, and he’s panting and Louis can see how hard he is through his skinny jeans and he wants to return the favor so bad, wants to suck Harry off or something, anything. Even coming down from his high it’s the only thing he can think about, how pretty Harry would look being blown, how responsive and _loud_ he would be.

“Fuck- Haz.” He gets out, and like holy shit, his voice. He knows it gets a bit rougher whenever he’s had a good wank, but nothing like this. He sounds so gravely and like, kind of sexy and he can tell that it does things to Harry.

“Yeah.” He breathes, looks up at Louis’ face finally with a dimpled grin and then kisses him like his life depends on it. “That was so good. Like, wow. You were like- it was perfect. I c-”

“I wanna suck you off.” Louis interrupts before he loses his nerve. “Like, blow you. Is that okay?”

“Shit.” Harry says, and lets a hand drift down to his clothed crotch, and all Louis can think of is why he’s still wearing clothes when Louis is completely naked above him.

Louis makes quick work of it, popping the button of his jeans and pulling them down with Harry’s briefs while Harry mumbles out how he wanted to do the same for Louis but it all happened so fast. Louis is still in love with a fucking idiot.

He doesn’t even get Harry’s pants down all the way, before he’s licking at the head of his cock and Harry is throwing his head back and groaning out, and it sounds so filthy like no sound Louis has ever heard Harry make. It’s almost intoxicating the realization that Louis is doing this to him, that Louis is the one making Harry fall apart like that. It spurs him on enough so take Harry in his mouth a little bit, sputtering a little when he sinks down too deep.

Harry laces his fingers in Louis’ hair, not tugging or pushing but just there and it’s like an anchor, keeping Louis together while he goes down. He hums around Harry’s cock and finds that it kind of works like magic when Harry starts whining above him.

It doesn’t really last long, but that’s okay because Louis’ jaw kind of hurts and he’s running out of new things to do with his mouth. He knows Harry’s close because his grip tightens on Louis’ hair and the other is gripping the coat below him, white knuckled and keeping him grounded enough not to buck up into Louis’ mouth.

His hips stutter and he tugs on Louis’ hair because Harry’s a gentleman and apparently doesn’t want to come in Louis’ mouth. But he’s a bit too late and some of it gets on the side of Louis’ face and also Harry’s pants. Not really bad for a first time though if Louis is honest. He keeps pumping Harry’s cock as he comes down until Harry swats at his hand when he’s too sensitive.

When Louis wipes his face with the sleeve of Harry’s coat and lies down, settling into Harry’s side, they both start laughing, and it’s stupid and they’re both blushing like mad and Louis didn’t even get it _in,_ but it’s perfect. It’s probably the best Louis has felt in a really long time.

But then he kisses Harry again, effectively shutting up his laughter.

He kisses Harry with intent. Not intent to get in his pants, but the intent to show Harry how much he appreciated getting into his pants already.

It’s great, all of it. Harry is licking into his mouth, gaining confidence he didn’t have previously, despite his blush, and Louis is humming happily because Harry is like, fucking straight out of a dream or something.

It’s going quite well really, almost well enough to start round two. That is until Harry’s walkie-talkie starts making noise.

“Where the hell are you two? It’s getting dark and Niall’s worried you’re dead!” It’s Gemma’s voice, and it’s really the biggest mood killer Louis has ever had the joy of experiencing.

He groans and presses his forehead to Harry’s chest while Harry tells his sister that they’ll be right there.

They both stand up and Harry starts pulling up his pants while Louis puts on his glasses.

“I guess it is getting dark.” Louis says, and if he thought his voice was wrecked before than he was very undereducated on how wrecked his voice can actually be. “Jesus- fuck.” He covers his mouth.

Harry just laughs, buttoning his jeans and then coming over to Louis, who’s just in his boxers, and kisses his mouth. “It’s hot.”

Louis scrunches up his nose and then pulls on his jeans before getting his t-shirt on.

“Hey Lou,” Harry’s voice is muffled by the t-shirt he’s putting on.

“Yeah?”

“Can we sleep naked tonight?”

Louis laughs and shoves him by the shoulder rolling his eyes, but that’s definitely a yes.

 

+

 

Apparently it’s possible to look completely fucked. Or at least, that’s how Niall puts it when Louis sits down next to him by the fire that’s already going. They’re cooking hot dogs and he leans over to whisper to Louis, “Dude, you look completely fucked” and Louis risks a glance over to Harry he looks entirely too smug. He’s trying to keep the distance between them though, because if not he’d probably want to touch him and kiss him and it wouldn’t really be the greatest, not with all of these people around to make fun of them, and/or give Gemma a reason to kill him. He knows by the end of the night though, he’ll find himself in his rightful place, cuddling with Harry and poking his dimples.

They share celebratory drinks, even though there’s not much to celebrate other than the fact that they all made it through the week alive. Zayn gets drunk enough to write a poem about how much he’d love a shower, and Perrie swoons enough that they end up making out and it’s kind of awkward but everyone’s drunk enough that it’s more entertaining than embarrassing.

They end up in a weird game of truth or dare where Zayn dares Niall to stick his foot in the fire and Liam has to jump in and drag a screaming Niall away before something horrible happens, and as a testament to how drunk he is, Louis doesn’t even worry about the bears finding them and killing them.

He does end up cuddled next to Harry, who’s adequately drunk off cheap beer and he keeps kissing the back of Louis’ neck which kind of tickles.

When Louis picks dare, it’s Gemma who dares him to kiss her brother, and Louis doesn’t know if it’s a fuck-up or if it’s better that it comes out this way, but he blurts out, “Well I already fucked him, so.” And then kisses him proper, with people watching and stuff. It’s one of his more shameless moments, and the confession wasn’t entirely true, but Louis counts it as a win anyway.

Niall makes too many jokes when him and Harry settle down for the night in their tent, and he can still hear him still when they’re trying to cuddle up with each other, despite the heat. Louis isn’t drunk enough that he thinks the canvas will keep Niall’s voice at bay, but he thinks that maybe kissing Harry until he can’t breathe will take his mind off of it. It seems like a good idea anyway, and any excuse to make-out with his boyfriend will do really.

They don’t end up sleeping naked, which does definitely make it more hot in the tent, but they end up cuddled together and when Louis wakes up in the morning with Harry sleeping soundly next to him, it’s the thing that he’s the happiest about.

 

+

 

The ride back home is slightly awkward. They all spent the morning burning energy, trying to get everything packed up and ready, but now that they’re all in the car together in silence, things start getting a little weird. Not that they’re aren’t good enough friends that they can’t take a night of make-out sessions, confessions, and weird dares – like Zayn licking Liam’s foot – it’s just the initial confusion, like who did what and do we talk about this and laugh yet, or do we pretend it’s not real and cry. Zayn definitely licked Liam’s foot though, there is literally no doubt in Louis’ hangover and sleep clouded mind.

And then there’s Harry leaning on Louis’ shoulder and sleeping and Louis decides that he needs to be the one to break the silence. Well, not that there was silence with the music going and Niall reading the directions to Gemma and Liam’s window letting the wind in. But still, it’s figurative silence.

He decides it’s best when Gemma is out of the car and getting gas, and when Harry goes in, tripping over his own feet in a sleepy haze, to get candy and snacks for everyone.

“It’s a bit stuffy in here don’t you th-” Zayn starts, but then Louis is speaking over him.

“I blew Harry yesterday in the woods.” He tends to interrupt a lot in regard to blow jobs.

Niall’s the first to pump his fist into the air, turning all the way around in his seat to give Louis a thumbs up. He nudges Liam next to him who just looks a bit sick due to Gemma’s driving. “Yeah, get some, Lou!”

Louis puts his face in his hands. “Fucking hell.”

“Is this a panicked ‘I blew Harry’ like an ‘I made out with Perrie kind of thing’ or is it the good kind.”

Perrie reaches over and punches Zayn in the arm, but she doesn’t seem upset at all. Maybe they talked about it. It could be the reason they’re sitting on opposite ends of the backseat. “Please tell us it’s the good kind.”

He sighs. “It’s the very, _very_ good kind. So thanks for that Niall.”

“Cheers.”

“But like,” Louis continues. “I’m a bit terrified of Gemma. I said what I said last night but it could have just been like a stupid drunken joke or whatever; I don’t know how she’ll react when I say that Harry is my boyfriend!”

“AWWW!” Perrie basically yells and Niall gives him a big slap on the knee. It’s all great, but they’re not really helping.

Zayn rolls his eyes. “She literally loves you, Lou. Harry’s whole family is completely in love with you. I’m sure they’ve been expecting this for a long time. We all have.”

He could kiss Zayn, but no because his mouth has been a lot of places in the last few hours and Louis has a boyfriend now. “You think so?” But it’s really stupid to ask because it’s true that Harry’s family is absolutely besotted with Louis and his unstoppable charm.

“Fuck off, of course I think so.” So it’s grumpy Zayn today.

“Yeah, I’d let you date my little brother if I had one.” Liam is saying now, and that’s surprising because Liam is the ass end of like literally all of his jokes. “Niall’s kind of like my little brother though, you can have him.”

“Yeah, you can have me.” Niall says, and then starts cackling like mad so Louis pushes him away by his face like he’s some little kid.

“Idiots, all of you.”

But just like that, their moment of bonding is over and Harry scoots in next to Louis in the car while Gemma gets behind the wheel and starts driving.

Louis loses his nerve before he even finds it to begin with.

 

+

 

It’s about halfway through the car ride, when Harry wakes up and Zayn falls asleep, that Louis decides to take up the issue with Harry. Quietly and in private as much as they can. Perrie, bless her, pretends like she’s not even eavesdropping at all, texting a friend and rolling down the window.

“I’m scared of your sister.” He whispers as quietly as possible into Harry’s ear.

“Your best f-” Louis clamps a hand over his mouth and gives him the best stormy Zayn look he can muster, because there is a real reason for the whispering that Harry isn’t getting the idea of.

He rolls his eyes and nods before leaning back in to whisper. “I know she’s my best friend but you’re her brother.”

Realization dawns on his face before he shrugs and mouths, “I’ll take care of it.” Louis doesn’t even have time to stop him or anything before Harry is blurting out, “Hey Gems, I have a boyfriend.”

She looks at him through the rearview mirror, one eyebrow raised. “Really.” She deadpans, and then glances to Louis who may or may not cower in fear. He’s so glad Zayn is missing this.

“Yeah, do you wanna know who?”

She tries to remain serious but a small laugh bubbles out before she clamps a hand over her mouth and regains her composure. Meanwhile Niall is losing it, Liam has his head out the window, Perrie is still pretending not to be interested, and Zayn is still asleep.

“I bet I could guess.” She tells Harry.

“I bet you couldn’t.”

“I could because I’ve graduated and you haven’t.”

Harry rolls his eyes, and then scoots forward on the seat. “So who is it?”

She smiles now, all dimples and crinkled eyes and Louis spares a thought to how handsome Harry’s entire family is. “Nah, you tell me, bub.”

“Ew,” Harry scrunches up his nose. “I’m not that much younger than you.”

“Just tell me, brat.”

Harry smiles at that and then promptly gives Louis a kiss on the cheek. He’s got courage, Louis will give him that, but maybe he’s just confident that his sister, and by extension his family, already love Louis as much as he does. But not like, in a creepy frog-stare kind of way.

“Yeah, saw that one coming.” She says, and then turns up the music all nonchalant and Louis isn’t convinced that she doesn’t want to kill him yet, but he does feel slightly better. Enough that he doesn’t mind cuddling up to Harry and letting Perrie shoot him an obvious wink. It’s really nice actually. It beats the car ride in the beginning of the week anyway.

Harry kisses him on the cheek again and Louis is definitely soft serving this. Truthfully, he’s so happy he might as well be in heaven.

 

+

 

Harry sneaks in through Louis’ bedroom window that night like he didn’t just see him six hours previous and like he actually needs to sneak in to be able to spend the night. Louis guesses he’ll let him act like the rebellious teen he isn’t though, if it helps boost his ego anyway.

“Did you shower?” He asks when he feels the bed dip with Harry’s weight and his arms find their way across Louis’s waist.

He nods against his shoulder “Squeaky clean.”

Louis flips over and lets his arm rest against Harry’s hip, pecking him on the lips. “Hi.”

“Would you have kicked me out if I didn’t shower?” He asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Maybe, you dork.”

“Hm,” He hums, cuddling closer to Louis.

“What are you here for?” Louis asks, figuring even though Harry’s his boyfriend now he can still tease him.

Harry looks up at him with big eyes and a pouty lip. “Do I need a reason?”

Louis rolls his eyes, because Harry is going to be the death of him with his cuteness. Louis has literally never been this fond of someone in his entire life. “No, of course not.” He pulls him closer so Harry can nuzzle into his chest and he can put his chin on top of Harry’s head. “But is there one?”

Harry laughs, and kisses the hollow of Louis’ neck once, twice, three times. “Just missed you.”

“Lies.” Louis says, but he’s laughing along with Harry. The giddiness of being in love. “I know how you are when you want something.”

Harry peppers kisses along Louis’ jaw. “I have no clue what you’re talking about.”

Louis lowers his head down to place a kiss to Harry’s lips. “You’re the worst, you know that?”

He gives Louis a smug smile. “I did maybe have one question.”

“Ah,” Louis nods, but gives him a kiss on the nose anyway, just because he can even if he’s teasing him. “Of course.”

Harry giggles, burying his head into Louis’ chest again. “Just- don’t say yes or no till I’ve finished okay?”

He chuckles, probably looking absolutely smitten, and he’s kind of glad Harry can’t see his face right now. “I’ll try my best.”

Harry sighs, and Louis feels the air on his bare skin. It’s a bit hot in his room, but the fan is going and he doesn’t mind the heat when he’s cuddled up with Harry. “Right, okay. So this week was the most fun I’ve had in a really long time, and like even though we didn’t find bigfoot-” Louis accidentally lets out a small laugh and Harry shushes him. “ _Despite that_ ,” He continues, “it was still the best week of my life. So, I was wondering…”

“Oh god, I don’t know if I can take more bigfoot hunting.” Louis teases, and Harry bites at his shoulder.

“Hush, you.”

“Sorry, sorry.” Louis says, but he’s clearly not. “Continue please.”

Harry laughs and then pulls away a bit from Louis to look him in the eyes. “So, I was wondering if you wanted to maybe do it again. But this time we’d do it right. Not in the middle of nowhere and like, just me and you? I haven’t figured out like where or when or anything, but I think it would be nice. Before you like, leave for college.”

Louis can’t help but smile, thinking about how they still have most of the summer left and how they shouldn’t even be worried about that right now, but Harry’s already wanting to go on vacation with him, in a fucking tent for Christ’s sake, and he wants to spend time with Louis before he goes. Louis might be having heart palpitations. “But-”

“ _Not_ looking for bigfoot.” Harry can read his mind apparently.

He kisses Harry because that’s the only thing he can think to do, because the answer is obviously yes. He’s probably always gonna say yes to Harry. He tsks at Harry when they pull away, shaking his head. “Why would we look for him? I told you I’d already found him.” He jokes and tangles his legs with Harry’s so he can’t get away when he tickles him.

Harry laughs, and Louis kisses him because he’s so beautiful and Louis can kiss him whenever he wants now.

“So is that a yes?” Harry asks, and Louis can barely make out a flush on his cheeks in the dark.  
He pushes a stray hair away from Harry’s face and smiles at him, all small and fond. “Yeah, it’s definitely a yes.”

-

**Author's Note:**

> you made it.  
> come say hi :)


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